Chickpeas are widely used for cooking in India. There are 2 varieties of chana/chickpeas black and white, although white chana is used most for cookings as it has mellow taste, but black chana is equally delicious, with its unique taste but stronger than white chana.
Both varieties comes as dry in packets and in tins ready to use. chickpeas as best with flat bread or chapattis but it’s nice with rice too. Both can be used for curry’s but I personally prefer to cook with dry ones as it has more flavour in them. You just need to plan it ahead as the dry chana need soaking for atleast 4-5hrs preferably overnight.
We like to eat both types and atleast make it once a week. Now you can cook it a traditional way by frying onions in oil or cook in slow cooker without the oil as I prefer. I have posted recipes of sauces with slow cooker on my blog, check one of them here or searching for slow cooker in search bar.
If you prefer slow cooker it cannot be simpler, put all the ingredients in it and let it do it’s magic. Although if you are using dry chana then you will need either slow cooker or pressure cooker to cook them as they will take really long to cook otherwise. If you don’t have either of them then you can use tin ones.
Ingredients: serves 2
- 1 onion
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 tbsp of ginger
- 2-3 green chillis
- 200g of passata
- 1 tbsp of garam masala or meat masala
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 200g chickpeas or a tin of chickpeas
- Salt to tatse
- Coriander to serve
Method:
- Fry some minced onions in a pan until they turn translucent then add paste of garlic, ginger and chilli, fry until raw aroma is gone
- Add tomatoes and cook until oil separates from the onions
- Add salt, turmeric and masala cook for 1-2 mins add chickpeas and water double the amount as chickpeaz
- Either cook in slow cooker 6-7 hrs or pressure cooker for 40 mins
- Serve with sprinkled coriander and rice or flat bread
- And enjoy!
Simple Yet Delicious 